A clear and transparent liquid detergent composition that provides maximum performance benefits when laundering fabrics continue to be desired by users of such compositions. Often modification of one ingredient such a composition causes a haze or cloudiness and results in a decreased product acceptance by the users. This haziness/is believed to be caused by a complex interplay of the many functional additives in such a composition and thus limit selection of active ingredients that can enhance performance of the liquid detergent composition. Prediction of stability and clarity relies on empirical experimentation, which may be altered with the addition of performance enhancers causing the product to become hazy and unstable and even causing phase separation.
Furthermore it has been found that consumer acceptance of liquid detergent formulations is not only driven by the cleaning performance, but also by its appearance and its clarity. The clear and the more transparent product is, the better it will be accepted by the consumers.
An important area of cleaning is removal of greasy and oily soils. Often the most effective surfactants for greasy and oil soil removal contribute to decreased transparency of a fully formulated liquid laundry compositions. The problem of surfactant contribution to the decreased clarity may be addressed via use of solvents such as glycols, polyols and others and hydrotropes such as cumene sulfonate, however it is desired to minimize the inclusion of such non-cleaning components of a liquid detergent composition.
Materials other than surfactants which can improve greasy and oil soil cleaning are polymeric materials, however effective formulation and stability of liquid detergent compositions with some polymeric materials further cause undesired clarity and transparency.
One way to address the formulation problem of liquid detergent compositions generally and more specifically, the formulation of polymeric materials into a liquid detergent composition has been found to be addressed by altering the surfactant system that reduces the level of linear alkyl sulfonate surfactants (LAS), and increases levels of ethoxy sulfate surfactants and nonionic surfactants. Another embodiment changes the ionic strength of the composition. However, alkyl ethoxy sulfate surfactants and nonionic surfactants are more hydrophilic than LAS surfactants, thus reduction of LAS level in the composition may make hydrophobic soils such as grease and oil soils more difficult to remove.
In addition, surprisingly it has been found that the reduction in LAS is required, said compositions still require some level of LAS to minimize the amount of wrinkles that result in clothes washed in the described liquid detergent compositions. Thus it is extremely important to define composition component boundaries to achieve the formulatibility of desired compositions, and formulatibility of other performance enhancing actives such as polymers to achieve a transparent/clear composition with optimized soil cleaning.